1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the field of prefabricated wall, roof and floor panels and more particularly to providing panels which may be fabricated, in a novel way from smaller panel pieces, so as to continue the skin strength (both compression and tensile) and which panels have incorporated novel means for more securely, efficiently and economically joining such panels to form either structural/load bearing walls or non-structural/non-loading bearing walls which may be highly insulative with substantially no thermal bridges.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
The rising cost of labor and materials have made building construction and especially the construction of homes increasingly more expensive. In addition the cost of heating and cooling a building has increased many times over in recent years. In order to keep the costs of construction, heat, cooling and maintenance within reasonable limits and therefore affordable to the general public, innovations have been necessary. In part because of the availability of prefabricated structure-wall and curtain-wall panels of the type discussed herein, there has been a return to the post and beam type of modular construction which lends itself to a prefabrication of the many construction components away from the construction site. By prefabricating and precutting many of the components of the structure at a manufacturing facility, many procedures may be used to improve the fabrication efficiency and improve the quality of the components as well as reduce the construction time.
Prefabricated panels that may or may not be load bearing are provided at the construction site and are designed to be used with the post and beam construction. The panels which do not carry a load are sometimes referred to as curtain wall panels and can be used to rapidly enclosed the post and beam frame. The exterior or outer skin of the panel is provided ready for siding to be applied and the inside or inner skin of the panel is provided ready for application of any desired interior finish. Currently the panels, whether they are structure-wall panels (load bearing) or curtain-wall panels (non-load bearing), are connected one to the other along the vertical edges of the panels by what is referred to as splines or stud posts. These splines or stud posts unfortunately introduce thermal bridges. Further, the joint of adjacent wall so joined by the stud posts, whether by mechanical or by gluing means, do not continue the strength of the panel skins. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,909 smaller than normal load bearing panels are shown assembled without the use of stud posts. Such an assembly requires that the panels have either the foam insulation extend beyond the panel skins or the panel skins extend beyond the foam insulative core. The two types of panel edges can then be alternatively abutted and fastened, by glueing for example, to form a wall. It should be clearly noted that the assembled wall does not provide for a panel or wall skin which has continuous strength from panel to panel.
It would be advantageous to provide a prefabricated insulative panel all of which are the same as far as the design of the core and skin configuration and none of which would require the use of an additional component such as a spline or stud post to attach panels to form a larger panel or wall. In addition to the stud posts being an additional component, they also reduce the effective insulative property of the completed building because they create thermal bridges. thus the elimination of the stud post or splines improves the thermal efficiency of the completed building in addition to enhancing the construction efficiency and reducing the cost.
Simply abutting the edges of the present prior art panels against stud posts by inserting the stud post in a slot in the panel or abutting panel edge to panel edge by inserting the extended foam core of one panel into a slot in the adjacent panel, in addition to the above shortcomings, does not provide for a very strong joint. It would therefore be desireable to provide a joining system which would be strong, would accurately align adjacent panels, would maintain thermal integrity, would minimize material waste (door and window cut-outs could be reassembled into full sized panels), reduce construction labor costs and which is simple and low in cost and would allow a continuous, homogeneous panel to be made from smaller panel pieces.